Void Edge, the latest season of Rainbow Six Siege, is currently live on Test Servers. The update is mainly centered around map rework, the two new operators, and balancing. Developers have buffed and nerfed multiple operators and guns and have also given their reasoning behind these changes.
Ubisoft recently shared its Y5S1 Pre-Season Designer's Notes. The main highlights are that Lesion has been nerfed greatly, Twitch's gadget and gun both saw heavy nerfs as well, Castle is getting a super shotty, and Warden is finally buffed. Check out the complete Designer’s notes below or on the official site.
Y5S1 Pre-Season Designer's Notes
With Operation Void Edge, new balancing changes will affect many aspects of the game. Our Dev Team is about to break them down for everyone.
LESION
- Removed initial tick damage from Gu Mines.
- Gu Mine damage increased to 6 per tick (from 4).
- Players in DBNO will not receive any damage from Gu Mines.
- Removing the ability to see Gu Mines icons through obstacles.
- Gu Mines icons are invisible beyond 8 meters.
Lesion has been performing very well for quite a few seasons now. As you all know, he combines solid gunplay, visual and audio intel gathering on top of the damage dealt by his Gu Mines.
By removing the initial damage tick from his traps, we want to achieve two things. We are addressing the frustration stemming from dying due to an invisible device and offering attackers a window of opportunity to remove the shard.
Lesion will still be able to slow down the enemy, and to gather audio intel. Players in DBNO state will continue to trigger Gu Mines, but won’t suffer from their effect. We are preventing frustrating combos such as Welcome Mats and Gu Mines to leave teams without a possibility to help downed Operators.
As for visual information gathering, we have removed the possibility to see Gu Mines icons beyond 8 meters and through obstacles altogether. It means that only traps within direct line of sight will have their icons displayed. This change aims at reducing the amount of information granted to defenders by Lesion.
TWITCH
- Increased recoil for F2 Assault rifle first 6 bullets.
- Shock Drone initial ammo reduced to 3 (from 5).
- Taser cooldown reduced to 1s (from2).
- Additional Dart is added every 30s (up to 3 times).
- Dart damage is reduced to 1 (from 10).
Our intention is to make players pick Emmanuelle for her ability, rather than her firepower.
To achieve that, we have decided to increase the recoil of the first six shots fired from her F2 and to change the drone darts resource management. Twitch’s F2 will have an increased vertical and horizontal recoil and its bullet spread pattern will be more varied. Overall the weapon should be harder to control within reasonable limits.
Her drone is a very useful asset to have when playing against a certain type of utility. However, we also realize that it becomes a second-grade drone as soon as its darts are depleted. It is big and cannot jump. The Twitch drone will now start with three darts and will replenish during the game , in the same way Yokai drones do it.
IQ
- IQ’s gadget will now spot bombs for the whole team.
IQ was already able to spot the bombs when using her gadget, but it will now share that information with everyone in the team, just like when using a drone. This change was implemented to facilitate communication when using this Operator.
WARDEN
- Removed Smart Glasses ability cooldown.
- Smart Glasses can be used if there is more than 20% of the total resource available.
- Smart Glasses can be stopped manually.
When fully depleted, the ability takes 10 seconds to be completely refilled. We are giving Warden the ability to deactivate and reactivate his glasses at any given moment, if his gauge is not entirely depleted. (It should now work like Vigil, Nøkk and Caveira’s abilities. That will provide him with more flexibility to react to attackers’ push. Warden is currently not quite where we would like him to be. Recent improvements to Ying and other Operators he can counter could potentially improve his presence.
CASTLE
- Super Shorty shotgun replaces of M45 as a sidearm.
At the moment, Castle can only create two rotations, thanks to his impact grenades. We want him to be an accomplished architect. Starting with Y5S1 Miles will be able to use his Super Shorty to create more advanced and complex set-ups. We hope that this new sidearm will lead to reducing the amount of remodelling that usually falls onto Smoke and Mira’s shoulders.
WEAPONS
Vector.45
- Increasing Vector.45 damage to 23 (from 21).
The SMG used by Goyo and Mira appeared quite clearly as underperforming. Goyo being the Operator suffering the most from the weapon poor performance. We have decided to give this weapon extra damage to try and bring it on par with other defenders’ primaries.
DMRs
- Removed Compensator attachment from DMRs.
- DMR calibre tweak.
Compensators had no impact on DMRs behaviour. This attachment was designed to improve the recoil of fully automatic weapons. As semi-automatics weapons could not benefit from this attachment in Siege, we removed a potentially misleading option. As such it is not really a balancing change but the removal of something that was detrimental to this class of weapon. DMRs have had the same calibre as assault rifles in Siege. With this update, they will now have increased destructive power. It will result in greater soft destruction and easier barricade destruction. Operators using DMRs will also now have the possibility to create holes easily to cut enemy rotation. The following Operators are affected by the calibre tweak:
- Twitch and Lion – 417
- Buck – CAMRS
- Blackbeard – SR-25
- Dokkaebi – Mk14 EBR
- Maverick – AR-15.50
C9
- Holo sight is now available for Frost’s C9.
The C9 is a somewhat decent weapon. There is however a strong suspicion that it might be underperforming as Frost often finishes off attackers in DBNO. Allowing players to equip the Holo sight is a first step towards offering more choice to players and looking into the actual performance of this weapon.
Frag Grenades
- Dokkaebi: Replace Frag. Grenades with stun grenades.
At the moment, the amount of intel gathered by defenders is quite important in Siege. Frag grenades are a way to deny utility and to counterbalance the Defenders’ edge.
- Maverick: Replace Stun Grenades with frag grenades.
Maverick is often picked to counter some bans (Thatcher or other Hard-breachers). By giving him frag grenades, we want to solidify his performance and would like his pick rate to be on par with Thermite or Hibana.
- Nøkk: Replace Claymore with frag grenades.
Nøkk is a very potent attacker it terms of fragging ability, but when it comes to utility, what she brings to the table is quite limited. We would like her to contribute to neutralizing enemy devices.
- Ying: Replace Claymore with frag. grenades.
Ying is very much comparable to Nøkk, as they both rely on selfish gadgets. Giving her frags is also a way for other to emphasize teamwork.
